Warframe Guide: Trinity

Learn more about this formidable support frame in this in-depth guide, explaining the playstyle, mods and preferrable loadouts on Trinity!

Disclaimer: This guide aims at Warframe beginners or players with some experience that want to get infos about a new Warframe before buying or building it. The content of this guide is written under the mindset to “get the most benefit with relatively minimal effort”. If you are looking for a guide describing the one perfect, maxed-out frame and never want to look back again, please search somewhere else.

Introduction – Why play Trinity?

With the right loadout such as the “Aura Trinity” helmet and a good weapon, Trinity can stay in the heat of battle and even outdamage other frames occasionally

With the introduction of Patch 9 Trinity got a major overhaul of her abilities. A lot of her kit is now more flexible, but still requires situational awareness and a certain amount of judgement on when to use your powerful abilities. Trinity is a great choice for players that like caster frames which can single-handedly save a mission that was already deemed lost or impossible to overcome. Do you see one of your teammates go down in a poison cloud of 5 ancients? Just pop blessing and save their ninja butts. Is your whole team struggling to defend a mission objective? Pop energy vampire or life well to disable dangerous enemies while keeping the energy pool of your entire team afloat. Trinity is always a welcome addition to every team and you will find yourself getting a lot of high-tier invites when playing this frame.

Also – contrary to popular belief – Trinity is not just a pure heal / support frame anymore: the usage of link in combination with a good (AOE) weapon can sport impressive numbers that match the damage output of “pure” damage frames in certain scenarios. Add blessing to your arsenal and throw a rocket / grenade launcher into the mix and you can tank enemies like a Rhino while dishing out tons of damage™ in midst of your enemies.

Strenghts

Has a strong spell kit with 4 useful abilities

Can disable up to 2 enemies for extended periods of time using energy vampire and well of life

Can supply the whole team with endless energy if played correctly

Renders the team completely invincible for 10-15 seconds. This can also greatly extend “survival missions” and includes hazards like orokin void lasers which would otherwise be deadly.

Link provides a variety of uses for melee or AOE weapons and greatly increases your survivability

Build flexibility allows for defensive and offensive playstyles alike

Weaknesses

Enemies, traps and hazards are no problem with blessing – just run through and keep the duration / animation in mind

Without spells to protect herself Trinity is very fragile

Her efficiency highly relies on your team (due to 2 abilities requiring teammates to be in the vicinity)

Highly energy-dependent. Depleting your energy-pool at the wrong time can be fatal

Playstyle

As Trinity is pretty feeble by nature it is highly recommended to act in the background when going against high-level mobs. In defense missions it is also advisable to search for higher ground as it greatly helps in judging when to place your abilities in a way that your team can greatly benefit from them. Ideally i would recommend tagging enemies that are not within direct focus of your team, i.e. out of their line of sight, but still close enough for the energy-pulses to reach (most of) your team. If you mark enemies in open sight, people will usually see it as invitation and open fire, killing the enemy instantly and putting the ability to waste. To encounter that, well of life can be used to “seal” your energy vampire spell because it gives the target 10x the HP and suspends it in mid-air for easy targeting while the energy vampire pulses can tick away. Be aware that this can be counter-productive and considered as “trolling” as strong enemies get back to full health and suspend in mid-air for a long time, slowing your teams pace and drawing too much attention in certain situations.

Therefore i would give the following tips in regards to using well of life and energy vampire:

Prioritize energy vampire over well of life as healing can also be done with blessing

Place energy vampire in the mid of your teammates, but not within direct line of sight (i.e. behind crates)

Use well of life to “seal” your energy vampire (i.e. on weaker mobs that are prone to get shot once the become a blue beacon)

Use both spells to disable different (dangerous) enemies, as they become disabled for an extended period of time

Try to keep either blessing or link up during combat as it can protect you from unforeseen consequences™

When to engage

It is always recommended to take an elevated position as you need to place and time your spells carefully. Since you work good at range a good AOE weapon can greatly help to support your team from a distance. Also keep health of your team in focus as you are there to safe them.

A huge exception from the “stay in the background” rule can be made when you are using link and blessing in combination with duration extending mods and the “Aura Trinity” helmet. This gives you a good 15 second-window of invincibility paired with complete stun-resistance due to link acting similar to Rhino’s iron skin. When you are aware of these timers your can throw yourself in the heat of battle and dish out high-powered melee blows or even use AOE weapons point-blank as you are immune to (and even distribute) all self-inflicted damage. However i would not recommend doing this unless you are sure that your energy pool can be sustained this way. Even with the 75% reduction from link you can quickly kill yourself with a misfired point-blank rocket or you end up getting quickly focused down by the enemy once blessing wears off.

Generally speaking i would recommend engaging only under the following mindset:

A teammate requires reviving and no one else is nearby

There is plenty of energy nearby to warrant the 100 + 75 energy spent during the engage

Your assistance is required to keep enemies at bay (which requires a good or stunning melee weapon)

The enemies are not a major threat to you

Finding that right spot in between offensive and defensive Trinity play is what separates the good trinity players from the bad. You will find yourself casting a lot, so spending your energy wisely and within the right moment is very important. That said it is generally OK to let a (straying) player go down as long as you or your teammates can afford to revive them during the duration of a blessing without neglecting other objectives.

An example of chaining abities together: 2 Ancients are stunned with WoL and EV

Things to note:

Link can be used by teammates to spread their damage to multiple enemies when firing at you. However this requires you standing still which is not really desirable in most scenarios.

Link also reflects damage from traps like Orokin Void lasers as long as enemies are linked. Use this in combination with blessing for devastating effects.

Blessing can protect your team from all kinds of hazards, including survival mode 0% health depletion, lasers, poison, etc.

Loadouts

As Trinity sports both aggressive and defensive playstyles, your weapon loadout can be adapted accordingly. If you like to do Rambo-moves and go directly into combat, the usage of AOE and multi-target melee weapons with high charge damage (such as Orthos or Fragor) work nicely on Trinity. Using a Shotgun can also increase your burst potential while link is in effect. Your emphasis should be set on high burst as you won’t stay in battle as most of the heavier frames. However, keep in mind that this playstyle centers about keeping yourself alive and needs a lot of energy to sustain, thus you may find yourself spamming a lot of spells just to stay alive during battle.

An example for a support Trinity loadout: Rocket launcher for tons of damage, kunai for close combat, Fragor as stunning and escape weapon

But as you may have figured out from reading this guide, i see Trinity excel in defensive play, carefully chosing when to place spells. A defensive loadout can focus on long-range weapons, AOE and rather supportive playstyle, dishing out a lot of damage from behind. This loadout may require more expensive or rare weapons (such as grenade and rocket launchers or sniper rifles) but greatly profits from you keeping your energy pool carefully managed and leaving you large-enough timeframes to keep your team alive.

Offensive loadout:

Shotguns such as Strun or Hek deliver a lot of damage point-blank when you go in and out

High-Charge damage weapons (Orthos or Ether to move in and out quickly)

Shade sentinel (as it allows you to move in and out of otherwise dangerous situations). Dethcube is OK if you want to go for pure offensive or fight from a distance

Defensive loadout:

Long range or AOE weapons to pick off dangerous (groups of) enemies

Stunning or disabling melee weapons (Fragor or Amphis)

Shade sentinel (as it keeps aggro off you when enemies approach).

Carrier sentinel might be a useful choice as it helps you to quickly collect stuff and dish out damage with the sentinel’s shotgun

Mod Builds

This guide heavily focuses on playing a “caster” support Trinity, as her abilities are simply too valuable to be put to waste. Thus i chose most of my mods to focus on her spell strengths instead of sacrificing spellpower for more durability or walk speed. As trinity you want to maintain a flow of casts as long as possible.

Loadout A like: Allrounder

A like Allround – Focusing heavy on team support and long invulnerability. This build is good for static defense.

This build is the one i use for most situations. The “Infested Impedance” aura fits the polarity and allows for higher level mods to be used. This build is focused on casting with the longest spell benefit possible. A bit of extra shields and life is included for your blessing to be more effective, allowing yourself to engage in melee combat if necessary. If you are not fighting against Grineer or Corpus you might as well go with the “Physique” Aura as it gives you more breathing room to save teammates with blessing. This build is good for defense as it heavily focuses on your team standing still. Careful timing of your spells is crucial as you don’t have any extra spell reach.

This build is designed for you and your team moving around a lot. Stretch and Focus ensure for your team in a short timespan.

Loadout B like: Bossfight & Mobility

A build based on movement. The Rejuvenation Aura in this build ensures that your team is steadily healed since life well is most likely not being used very often (except for disables). Focus and Stretch ensure, that a pulse of energy vampire gets the maximum effect as well as increased damage. Constitution ensures that you are not disabled while your teammates are killed. This build is still very durable to ensure a mix of close and ranged combat.

Loadout C like: Caster / Glass-Cannon

This build basically allows you nonstop casting. It also provides a lot of spell effectiveness at the loss of defense.

This loadout uses a wrong polarity for the aura, costing you quite a lot of health. So you might either fill up vitality or replace stretch for something more defensive. In exchange for your fragility you gain the biggest energy benefit for you and your team. This is a high risk / high reward build that should allow you to cast non-stop. Keep your distance though, as stronger enemies can kill you off very quickly in between your spells.

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